Despite having four children aged between 10 and 22, Suzanne Sharp is supremely calm about Christmas. 'I pull it together on the day,’ she says. 'In fact one year Granny arrived to stay on Christmas Eve and asked, “Darling, where are we having Christmas lunch?” And yet it always turns out fine.’

Suzanne is one of the main designers for the Rug Company, which she and her husband, Christopher, set up in 1996, and has a brilliant eye for arranging their colourful home in one of London’s leafier areas.

On Christmas morning the presents are all arranged in front of a blazing fire in the peacock-green (Farrow & Ball’s Mere Green) drawing-room. Suzanne does not like a traditional tree – and likes traditional decorations even less – but she adores flowers and so has her friend Victoria, of the florist Scarlet & Violet in Kensal Rise, to concoct beautiful arrangements for the chimneypiece and the 1970s Perspex and glass coffee table. 'The chimneypiece is an ideal height for showing off flowers,’ says Victoria.

__________________

'On Christmas morning the children used to rush into our room to open their stockings,’ says Suzanne. 'Now it’s really just our 10-year-old, Jamie. We have a proper breakfast with fresh orange juice, boiled eggs and soldiers, toast and tea. I don’t like the idea of smoked salmon, or worse still champagne, for breakfast. Though we do get excited and eat chocolate from the stockings.’ Presents are piled up in the drawing-room or hidden in hessian sacks appliquéed by Sophie, 20, who like her mother is very creative.

Suzanne does not like to rush breakfast or the ritual of cooking Christmas lunch. 'It’s got to be turkey, crunchy roast potatoes – all those lovely old-fashioned things you don’t have time to do the rest of the year,’ she says.

___________________

The drawing-room is evidence of Suzanne’s clever eye for combining pieces from different eras. On the floor are two rugs designed by her: Cowhide Flower, a daisy-shaped patchwork in white cowhide, and on top of it a 1970s-inspired geometric pattern, Key Shadow. You could not imagine two more disparate looks, yet they go together brilliantly.

There’s a row of 1940s oil paintings of vases of flowers beside the marble fireplace, which also holds a pair of 1960s Barbier brass lamps and, in front of it, a pair of deep-blue velvet buttoned sofas. Peter Blake’s giant tapestry Alphabet, 2008, from the Rug Company, stands against the vibrant walls. The Sharps have commissioned the artists Gary Hume, Kara Walker and Julie Verhoeven to design tapestries, too.

'When this room was painted white it was impossible to decorate,’ Suzanne says. 'It looked very bitty. It’s like wearing a bikini when you’re tanned – colour sets everything off better. Once I had painted the room, the colour brought everything together,’ she says.

___________________

Suzanne’s design decisions might be surprising and revolutionary, but nobody could say that about her Christmas lunch. 'It has to be turkey, with all the traditional trimmings,’ she says. 'I love the rituals of Christmas. I like having things such as wine glasses that are not for every day [her Christmas ones are from Summerill & Bishop]. I enjoy going to the cupboard and saying, “Oh, I’d forgotten that dish.”’ She lays the table with dark-blue patterned antique plates and matching vegetable dishes, setting them and some pieces of old family silver on a vivid raspberry and cream striped cloth from Ian Mankin).

Christmas tradition was very important during Suzanne’s childhood in Malta. 'Every year we started making papier-mâché Nativity scenes in November. And on Christmas Eve we would pick oranges from our own trees to make juice for Christmas breakfast and cook with my grandmother.’

Suzanne’s grandparents were a great inspiration: her grandfather trained her eye for design, while her grandmother cooked delicious meals. 'My mother was not much of a cook, but my grandmother! She was brilliant. Her trifle recipe here is the most delicious you will ever eat.’ Happy Christmas!